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Post by Draxas on Aug 1, 2007 22:50:10 GMT -5
Twilight continued to try to use the uplink to worm his way past the system security in a dire race against time. The format function had just crept past the 65% mark, and only half of the needed files were secured. The layers of security on nearly every directory that remained weren't helping matters any...
Without warning, the door to the room slid open. All three men turned to look at the new arrival, two with weapons readied, but saw no one there. However, there was a faint *PING* sound from outside, and a moment later a grenade came sailing into the room...
Reacting purely on instinct, and driven by his abnormally fast reactions and a huge burst of adrenaline, Twilight dove for the explosive. He grabbed it out of the air before he could even hit the ground, and whirled it around and whipped it out of the room through the already closing door as he hit the floor. A brief, shouted alarm was called out by whoever had thrown the projectile, but the sound was cut off by the door sealing itself shut again. A mere moment later, a muffled blast sounded outside, followed by the sound of bits of metal ricocheting off of the door.
The three men stared in a drawn out silence, interrupted only by the slight drip of drops of liquid hitting the floor. Twilight followed the noise, to find the the tech was now pale as a ghost and seated in a puddle of his own urine.
"Lovely," said Twilight disgustedly, "Now it's going to stink like piss in here."
Mike glanced over at the tech and rolled his eyes.
"Seems like Nikki didn't draw as many off as any of us would have liked," he responded, "How far along are you?"
Twilight got back up off the floor and examined his uplink. The formatting progress had moved up to almost 70% during the commotion.
"Whether I get what I need or not, I'm almost out of time," Twilight responded, resuming his work, "But I need to keep working, and getting blown up is not exactly conducive to that. We need to figure out a way to keep them from getting in here, now that they know where we are. I'd be willing to bet they've probably also guessed what I'm up to, which means that they're going to stop going after Nikki and come after us instead..."
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Post by sinim on Aug 2, 2007 12:14:48 GMT -5
"I'll get on that, Michael said quickly." As he raced over to the door and ripped off the access panel.
"Don't destroy that, we'll need to be able to get out." Twilight said, seeming to know what he had done by the sound of it.
"Don't worry. I'm not."
Twilight risked a brief glance and what he saw amazed him. Mikes fingers were inside the panel quickly moving wires around and swapping circuit cards.
It was only a moment later that Mike said "Done!"
"What exactly are you 'done' doing?" Twilight asked, continuing to work, cursing under his breath as he saw the progress reach 75% completion.
"I rewired the door panel and cut off all external access points. The door can only be opened and closed from in here. Now I just need to find something to barricade it with should the need arise."
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Post by Razor on Aug 10, 2007 11:59:50 GMT -5
Nikara completely froze up as she rounded the corner and took in the sight before her. In just the few seconds she'd been out of sight...the guards had been slaughtered to the man. Blood, body parts, and what was left of them was strewn all over...and not a single wound was from a gunshot. All of them appeared to have large slashes all over their bodies...severed limbs...crushed bones...caved in skulls.
She was used to killing. She'd thought she was desensitized to it. This made her think otherwise, and she quickly shuffled back to keep her bare feet out of the growing pool of collective blood. Mitsukai flared up from her right hand.
-BEHIND YOU!-
Nikara quickly whirled around and leaned back, just in time to bring her wraithblade up in front of her...a short, ebony blade rested only an inch from her face, and her arm shook with the reverberations of the powerful blow. Her eyes took a moment to come into focus and see the form that was perched upside down on her sword...
It was a tall, lanky, pale-skinned man...long raven hair draped down over most of his face, and hung down, not quite reaching the clashing blades. His back was arched, and his entire body was covered in black leather armor of some kind...alien in appearance. Cold grey eyes focused on hers, sending a shiver down her spine as his mouth cracked into a wry smirk. His voice was low and dry, and seemed to dull out as he spoke.
"...what's wrong? Don't you appreciate my help?"
She quickly pushed away at him, sending him airborne as she skipped backwards a bit. The lanky man flipped gracefully and landed a short distance away. The blade he had been using was attached to his wrist...there was one on the end of each arm. Though his back was extremely arched, he was still taller than she by a good amount...and by the small bits of blood dripping from his ebony blades, it was obvious he was responsible for the slaughter.
Nikara quickly lowered herself down into a fighting stance reminiscent of her father's, holding the blade out to the side...and at this, the man simple laughed. "Oh my, and you have your father's temper too...how is the old man nowadays? He ever get over that pathetic woman of his?"
Her eyes lit up, the simple mention of her mother immediately sending her into a blind fury. "SHUT UP!" She dashed towards him, making every effort to cave his skull in with her blade...every swing carved through the ground, rather than crushing it like it had before. To observers, she'd be but a blur of movement, the black of Mitsukai leaving a gorgeous pattern of streaks in the air.
...yet the man didn't even raise his arms...a step back here, a skip there, a back bend over here...not a single blow even came close to hitting him until she finally backed him into some more crates. He shot to the side as her blade sliced into the wood and its contents, and simply lifted his hand, his palm impacting effortlessly with her chest. Nikara let out a cry as she was sent flying back into another pile and slammed into them, Mitsukai's form quickly vanishing. "So he hasn't even taught you that yet...what an idiot..."
The girl slowly pulled herself out of the smashed crate, her teeth bared at him as she quickly snapped her blade back into existence. "...you...bastard...how dare you!?"
"...now now...little Nikki...is that any way to treat your dear old uncle?"
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Post by N3B on Aug 10, 2007 16:44:59 GMT -5
OOC: Alright then, time to post and figure out a way to tie myself into this mess..... should be done by today.
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Post by Razor on Aug 10, 2007 19:26:41 GMT -5
((If you remember, it was stated earlier that Razor and Sinim were probably somewhere nearby, getting drunk.))
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Post by N3B on Aug 11, 2007 18:04:00 GMT -5
OOC: Took a while, but I think I've come up with something that fits the background of what I've established with this character, a way to connect him to what's going on o'er yonder, with a proper motive and all of that. I shall begin writing immediately.
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Post by N3B on Aug 13, 2007 5:14:04 GMT -5
OOC: Thar. Rather long, you can see why it took so long to write. I haven't proof-read it, so excuse any odd typos or syntax errors you stumble on. I tried to leave things as open as possible, only exploring my own personal involvement in things. Hopefully this will get things moving and everyone can start figuring things out.
IC:
He had been absently listening to Monica (or was it Malorie? -- he couldn't remember which) for ten minutes or so, nodding his head periodically as he thought about the progress he'd made in the lab the past week. He himself could hardly believe what all he'd managed to accomplish; it was still only scratching the surface of things in the big-picture, but it was a phenomenal start.
".... but I just don't get how they can say that and expect us to actually do it. I mean, it doesn't make sense, and it's totally not fair ...." she kept talking. There was a loud crash from a nearby table; someone had had a few too many drinks and had just knocked over a few of the bottles with a misguided arm, sending a few off the edge of the table, smashing to pieces on the tile floor.
Two gentlemen were in a booth, sitting across from each other, probably there before Nayton had arrived. They both wore dark, tight clothing, heavy over-coats, and thick, rigid boots. One of them had a strange bulge on his back -- it didn't look like a hump, or any other sort of deformation, but as if he was hiding something under his coat -- a weapon perhaps? What seemed most out of place was the single, white feather laying on the floor by his feet.
"Just you see and wait, we'll know sure when Nikara's back from that NUFLO building!" the drunken one said, clearly louder than he thought he was talking. He took the bottle in front of him and brought it up to his face, just missing his mouth. He adjusted himself and got the mouth of the bottle to his lips, but not before letting a bit trickle down his face and neck. He wiped the booze from his cheeck before setting the bottle back down on the table.
"I'm telling you, something foul is going on, I just don't know what. It has to be more than your average terrorist group," said the fellow across from the drunken man with the bulge on his back. He had a similar number of empty beer bottles in front of him, but his manner seemed much more sober and refrained. He leaned over the table and said something, almost in a whisper. The other man leaned in as well.
By now, Nayt's attention was focused entirely on the two odd gentlemen in the booth a few tables over; he'd totally blocked Monica's ranting out, trying his best to hear what the two were saying. He was no good at reading lips, but even if he were he'd only be able to read half of the conversation, for he sat at an angle to the booth and couldn't see the other guy's face. As he studied the two, a hand waved itself up and down in front of his face, pulling him out of the gaze.
"Hey, are you paying attention to me?" Malorie said, almost offended that he wasn't bewitched by her attempts to look cute and open.
"Sorry," he said, tossing his papers into his briefcase and locking it shut. He stood and walked over to the booth, his hands clasped together in front of him. The two gentlemen saw him coming and stopped talking, both curiously eyeing him as they took a few more sips of their beer. He approached the table, not quite sure what to say, twiddling his thumbs as he thought of the most tactful way to address them.
"Can we help you?" the sober one said as Nayt arrived.
"Uhm, yes actually," Nayt said, turning back to glance at his briefcase; Malorie was still sitting at the table, watching him with an eyebrow raised. "I overheard you say something about NUFLO, and I was wondering if I might ask you more about them. You see, I've received a couple of emails from someone claiming to be a representative of NUFLO -- I have no idea what the acronym stands for, I've never heard of it -- offering to endorse my research." The two gents looked at each other and then back up at Nayton. "I've responded a few times asking for more information about their organization, and about the terms they were asking, but they refuse to tell me anything until I explicitly agree. Needless to say I'm not going to do so without full knowledge of what's going on, and I was wondering what you could tell me about them."
The two sat back in their seats, one of them letting out a heavy sigh and shaking his head. "Well, what is it you're researching?"
"Oh, jeez, sorry I forgot to introduce myself," Nayt said, lightly hitting himself on the forehead with the butt of his palm. "I'm Nayton Feyes, PhD, professor of quantum mechanics and researcher at Northwestern University. For the past 2 years I've been studying a new type of radiowave that I discovered during my intersteller research, influenced by my fascination for the Maian and Skedar systems."
The two hesitated for a moment before shuffling out of the booth and offering their hands and introducing themselves. The man with the slight bulge on his back spoke first: "Name's Razor, and this here's Sinim," Nayt shook their hands as Razor finished off his last bottle and set it down on the table.
"We should talk about this someplace else," Sinim said as he indicated the door and started walking.
Nayt stood idle for a brief moment, playing through the different scenarios in his head of what these two might be up to. In the worst case scenario, he figured, they'd scam him, mug him, rough him up, and at the very worst, kill him. He wanted no part of that, and by his figuring, the odds of that happening were much lower now that they were introduced. Criminals usually only targeted strangers off the street; he should be fine. He had a little trick up his sleeve, just in case.
As he thought, Razor caught his attention. "You coming or not?"
"One moment, let me get my effects," Nayt said, turning to go back to his table. As he got closer, he saw that his briefcase, and worse, his hat, were not where he left them. A brief panic overcame him as his eyes darted around the bar looking for his belongings, or anything suspicious or out of place. He knelt down and checked under the table, wondering if it had been set on the floor -- no luck. As he stood, he saw Monica, still in her uniform, bolt across the bar and slam through the kitchen door, his briefcase in hand.
"Hey! Stop!" He shouted after her. He slid over the top of the table and plowed through a couple ordering from the bar, bursting through the kitchen door moments behind Malorie. A skillet hit the wall a foot from his head as he took in the kitchen. Malorie stood behind an island counter, grabbing pots and pans from the overhead storage and throwing them his way. Nayt stepped to the side as another pan came close. He ducked behind a counter for shelter, trying to figure out how to get close to her.
There, before his eyes, was a large, thick cutting-board. He grabbed it and emerged from behind the counter, holding the board in front of him. He barreled her way, deflecting projectiles as they came his way. Before long, the girl realized the futility of her efforts and turned to run again. Nayt lowered the cutting-board to see where he was going.
She kicked the door open and ran around the corner -- Nayt followed. As he stepped outside, he saw Monica lying on the ground, fade down, with Sinim above her, the tip of his foot extended and the briefcase in his hand.
"This yours?" he said as he tossed the briefcase to Nayton. He knelt down and picked the girl up by her shoulders. "And who are you? What are you trying to do?"
She blew her hair out her eyes and screamed as she suddenly brought her knee up, aiming for Sinim's groin. He shifted his position and her attack went wide -- he pushed her back a few feet and pinned her against the wall. The kitchen door opened and Razor emerged.
"We've got two more incoming, better get moving," he said as he took a pistol out from under his jacket and loaded it.
Sinim picked the girl up and tossed her over his shoulder, holding her with one arm and brandishing a pistol himself. "Come on," he said as he headed down the alley. Nayt stood in disbelief as he watched what was happening. What was going on? Who are these two guys, and what's going on with his student?
Razor clapped him on the shoulder "Comon we need to get out of here," As Nayt continued to idle, Razor grabbed his arm and pulled him along, forcing him to move. Nayt's legs cooperated, if only to keep him from falling on his face. He had no idea what was going on. Today was just a normal day -- work at the lab, out to the bar to drink it all down. Now he was running (for his life?) with two suspectable guys, and a hostage.
Two shots broke his train of thought -- one hit the wall as they turned the corner, and the other, he coudn't quite tell. As they turned into the street, he caught of glimpse of two guys in black jumpsuits running out from the kitchen, guns in-hand. It was now that he began to really get concerned.
Sinim, a few meters ahead of Nayt and Razor, stopped and said "Short-cut through here," before disappearing between the two buildings. After shuffling around and knocking over a few trash recepticles, they were at another street, hopping into four-door sedan, with Razor behind the wheel, Nayt in the passenger's seat, and Sinim and Mandi in the back.
They took off, with Razor pulling the sedan up into the night sky and into an airborne highway lane. Nayt looked out the window, straining his neck to see the ground below them, and saw the two jumpsuit-guys just come out of the alley, unaway of their getaway.
Nayton sat back in the seat, brushing some dirt from his pants and letting out a heavy sigh. He reached up to his head to adjust the brim of his hat, only to realize that he had in fact lost his hat. Worst news of the night. He closed his eyes to block out the bright neon billboards and rested his head on the back on the seat.
"No nodding off now," Razor said. "We still need to have a word with you, and with you," he said, looking over his shoulder at the pub waitress. She was keeping awfully calm, likely due to the gun barrel up by her ear. Whether Sinim had that weapon loaded with live ammo or not, Nayt left up to fate. "So, who can we assume you work for? Nuflo?" Razor continued.
She didn't respond right away. "Either way," Sinim started, "We can turn you in for attempted theft and assault charges, or we can let you go, no grudges held. There's no telling what your boss would do with you for spilling, but your odds of avoiding retribution are greater if you fess up now."
"I'll ask again -- Nuflo?" Razor said.
She nodded, meekly.
"What is it you want with the doc here?"
For a moment she didn't speak; she bit her lip and looked down at her feet. Prodded with the gun, she started to explain. It was crude explanation, but it was enough for Sinim and Razor to understand that there was something, or rather, someone at large. Maybe both. But there was certainly more to this case of attempted theft and assault than met the eye.
"So you were planted in Mr. Feyes' class to keep an eye on him and his research, and they want the details on the his work eh? Any idea what they'd be doing with it?" Sinim asked. To this, Leigh (as they discovered to be her real name) merely said "no."
"Well, we can assume that Nuflo isn't working independently. There's probably one or more people really running the show, with their own intentions, and Nuflo's just the means to get it done, to cover it up, and place the blame on when the tomato rots. Question is who, and what's the motive?"
Leigh suddenly piped out "I know one," and then suddenly cut herself short. She chose her next words carefully. "Well, I don't know his name. He's a tall man, sort of an arched back, long black hair. He's got swords or something grafted to his wrists -- I don't know. I've seen him around, and he's supposedly where my orders came from."
Sinim rubbed his chin, not sure what to make of it. It was then that he realized they didn't quite know what was so special about Feyes' research. "What would they want with your research then?" he asked.
Nayton was surprised that he was being brought into the conversation -- he'd almost zoned out. "Uh, well. As I said earlier, I've discovered -- well, my colleagues and I -- a type of radiowave previously unknown to our planet. Truthfully, it's not really a radiowave but that's the closest description I can give it. It behaves like a radiowave, except it seems natural, and everywhere -- like it's in the air, emanating from something, somewhere. Sort of like how ultraviolet light, harnessed for energy in all sorts of lifeforms and technologies, comes from the sun, these waves also come from something somewhere, though I've yet to determine exactly what.
I first discovered it on my studies abroad, in the Skedar and Maian systems. I assume they've been aware of it for some time, and that it's been a crucial part of their culture. Although to them, it's nothing special -- just like gasoline or electricity to us, commonplace. When I got home, I was surprised to see these waves present in our own atmosphere and solar system. These may very well have always been present, and we've just been ignorant of it -- or, they may have been introduced to our system when Maians, and later Skedar, started making contact with us.
But regardless, it seems to act as an energy source, it can be harnessed. I've only recently -- in the past 3 months -- developed a prototype for handling this. Thus far I've only dealt with small quantities, but the amount that can be harnessed is theoretically infinite, provided you have the proper technology and the strength of spirit. I've only used it as like a battery to power things like wrist-watches and remote controls, although I suppose it can used as more than just that."
The three others in the car remained silent for a few moments, taking the information in. Razor broke the silence: "Well, there's been recent activity at a Nuflo -- still haven't a damn clue what that means, probably just some stupid acronym to make people bonkers trying to figure it out -- we know a certain few who've got business there, with Nuflo at least. We should probably have you meet with them, they'd like to know what you, and Leigh, have just told us."
"So where do I get off?" Leigh asked, rolling her eyes.
"Um, next exit?" Razor offered.
Just then a loud siren went off behind them -- Nayt turned and looked over his shoulder to see the familiar blue and red lights of the police force hover cars behind them.
"Son of a," Sinim muttered through his teeth, "Were you speeding?!"
Razor looked down at the speedometer. "A little. More troublesome than that, I'm technically driving under the influence."
"Well, we can't be getting incarcerated now can we? That's not our thing, get us out of here. And make a stop for the lady."
With that, Razor put the pedal to the metal and left the police in the dust.
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Post by Razor on Aug 13, 2007 12:31:16 GMT -5
((Brilliant! I've got something to do with that bunch...just need these guys to move along the facility group a bit. Good thing Razor's too drunk to immediately recognize that description...XD))
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Post by Draxas on Aug 13, 2007 13:22:03 GMT -5
Twilight cursed under his breath as the formatting hit the 95% mark. There wasn't much left to actually see on the disk anymore, and he was still missing key files; at this point he didn't think it was likely that they would be among the small portion of the data left intact. He quickly scanned through the last few directories as the progress gauge slowly ticked down the last few percentage points. He was about to give up and disconnect when he stumbled onto a supicious directory. It was encoded in an unusual symbol set that he had never seen before, and nested several levels deep with password encryption on each layer. Twilight intrinsically knew that something important had to be stored there in order for it to be so heavily protected...
"Wow, paydirt," he said aloud, surprised that such a remarkable find was still left behind. Even as he said it, the progress turned over to 97%.
"What is it?" asked Mike, wandering over to the console and looking over his shoulder.
"I don't know," responded Twilight, "But it looks awfully important. Time to go for broke. Be ready, things might get kind of messy because of this..."
"What do you -?" began Mike, but he was interrupted by a cacophony of alarms screaming and blaring to life.
"Yeah, that's kind of what I thought might happen..." said Twilight, as he furiously attempted to grab up the last of the data. Even as he did so, the uplink started to labor, and then returned an error message as the format progress turned over to 100%.
"What the hell did you do?" demanded Mike, as he pointed his weapon toward the door.
"The only thing I could, at this point," replied Twilight, as he stood up from the console, stowed his uplink, and prepared for battle once again, "I used the crudest method possible to break all the remaining security on the server to get those files. I dumped a cracking virus onto the system; I knew they weren't going to respond well to that. Either way, it's probably going to accomplish your mission for you..."
"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Mike, looking sidelong over at him. At the exact same moment, the tech in the corner whimpered, "Oh god, you didn't..."
"Yeah, I did," replied Twilight, "Tell Nikki to get finished with whatever she's doing, because we need to get out right now. The unauthorized intrusion and virus attack to the server at the highest level has set this whole facility to self-destruct. We need to get the hell out RIGHT NOW!"
Mike's eyes widened the slightest bit, but despite mostly maintaining his cool, it was rather noticable.
"All right, let's go then," he said, and got ready to open the exit door, "They're probably right outside, so get ready... One... two... THREE!"
Both men burst through the door just as it began to slide open, firing blindly around them as they booked down the hallway. Both stopped short as they realized there was nobody there except for the dead guards that were unlucky enough to have been caught in the grenade blast earlier; everyone else had been smart enough to head for the nearest exit when they heard the evacuation alarm go off. Both reloaded their expended rounds, incase they wouldn't be as lucky later, but just as they were about to head off back towards the warehouse once again, they heard a voice behind them shout, "WAIT!"
Both whirled to find the tech from the server room running toward them, shouting, "Don't leave me here! I don't want to die!"
"Why shouldn't I just shoot you right now?" asked Mike, as he pointed his magnum at the man.
"Be... cause..." huffed the man as he stopped in front of them. He clearly was unaccustomed to much physical activity, "I... have... information... that can... help you..."
"Fine," said Twilight, cutting him off, "You can come with us, and you'll spill your guts later. Just don't slow us down, or we're going to leave you behind."
"Thank you..." gasped the tech, and he took off after the two infiltrators, who had already started running for the exit again.
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Post by N3B on Sept 10, 2007 14:06:38 GMT -5
I could, but I'm almost certain it would bastardize what everyone else is trying to do.
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Post by Draxas on Sept 10, 2007 14:43:21 GMT -5
Do it anyway. I have neither time nor inclination to write a solo story by double posting. We'll roll with whatever you've got. Isn't that what this is all about, after all?
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